We think the President and the Department of Justice inspector general have gone way too easy on Assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe; from our perspective a Hatch Act violation should be the least of McCabe’s worries.

In the unmasking controversy, it seems Trump was more interested in politically exploiting the specter of abusive unmasking than in ordering the disclosure of what actually happened. Is the same thing true of the dossier? I don’t know why the FBI and Justice Department are stonewalling the Intelligence Committee. Suffice it to say, however, that the president could order disclosure if he wanted to. He hasn’t. If he persists in that posture, we have to assume he would prefer that we not know what the FBI told the FISA Court.

The news stunned some of those who had been investigating the matter. Yes, they knew that knowledge of the dossier extended to some officials in the FBI. That was bad enough; how could the FBI endorse and consider underwriting one campaign's dirt-digging operation in the middle of a hotly contested election? But now investigators know that nearly the highest levels of the Obama Justice Department were also aware of the dossier.

It is time for Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray to recover control of their agencies before the soft coup being led by Robert Mueller, James Comey and rogue FBI agent Peter Strzok engenders a real constitutional crisis.

As much as we respect Attorney General Jeff Sessions, President Trump wasn’t elected, and he wasn’t appointed Attorney General, to continue the Obama-era policies of defying congressional subpoenas. If Jeff Sessions can’t get his underlings to comply with Congressional subpoenas heads should roll – either theirs or his.

The bottom line appears to be that the FBI and the Justice Department are not vouching for the accuracy of the substantive allegations of collusion in the dossier. Indeed, a careful reading of Adam Schiff's interview with the Wall Street Journal suggests even the combative top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee isn't doing so, either. The most explosive parts of the dossier remain unverified.

A group of principled conservatives in the U.S. House of Representatives did what Speaker of the House Paul Ryan will never do – they went on offense against Robert Mueller and the rest of the insiders protecting Hillary Clinton and the worst villains of the Obama-era swamp.

Given the many moving parts in the Mueller probe and the loss of focus on the primary reason for it, the government may have a difficult time proving its case in court. But with unlimited funds and a staff of lawyers who have Democratic affiliations, you can bet they will try to make more than a ham sandwich out of it.

It’s not clear that there was Trump collusion with Russia, but Trump won, so we’re still hearing about it. Had Hillary won, there would still be collusion with Russia, but we’d be hearing that line that Clinton-administration scandals made an eight-year refrain: Everybody does it!

The truth about the dossier is a reminder of what was and what was not at stake in last year's presidential contest. Ever since Trump's election, the moral posturing by some of America's sleaziest liars has become nearly unbearable. If you wonder why voters chose not to elect Clinton, even though it meant something as extraordinary as choosing Trump, you need look no further.

Until Democrats rid themselves of the Clintons, and stop covering for them, the Democratic Party cannot be considered a legitimate political party; it is merely one cog in a vast conspiracy to justify and cover up the Clintons' crimes.

The administration complains about unmasking, but never takes the steps Trump could easily take to expose it as an abuse of power. Just like it complains about the dossier, but never takes the steps Trump could easily take to expose it as a fraud. None of this would prove collusion between Trump’s campaign and the Kremlin. It does suggest, however, that there were good reasons to conduct an investigation.

The prospect of the FBI adopting a partisan opposition research project raised "questions about the FBI's independence from politics," said Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, who is also investigating the dossier. In the end, it's always possible that the GOP's concerns are exaggerated, that there is little to the story. That's what the House committee wants to find out -- without, so far, information from the FBI that could shed light on the matter.

Senate investigators have had problems getting the FBI to reveal information about the Trump dossier. They're not the only ones. Outside groups filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests are running up against a stone wall when it comes to the dossier. When it comes to the Freedom of Information Act, the FBI is resisting the release of even the most basic information. "They're fighting us on everything," Judicial Watch chief Tom Fitton told me recently. "They're fighting us tooth and nail."

The dossier remains critical in the Trump-Russia investigation for several reasons. It contains a number of sensational allegations on the question of whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russians. It raises questions about Clinton supporters indirectly paying Kremlin-linked Russians for dirt on the Republican presidential candidate, now the president. And it played a role in the rapid deterioration of relations between Trump and Comey.